Judge, 1920-02-21 · page 7 of 36
Judge — February 21, 1920 — page 7: what you’re looking at
What you’re looking at
# "Café Mousse" - Judge Magazine Social Satire This page contains two distinct pieces of social satire typical of Judge magazine's commentary on 1920s American life. **"Café Mousse"** (main story with illustration) mocks the shallow materialism of young women of the era. The narrator describes Mabel as beautiful but intellectually vacant—her mind filled only with "fur-coats, marshmallow sundaes, and diamond solitaires." The satire peaks when Mabel, during a romantic dinner at Rector's (a fashionable restaurant), uses the occasion to manipulate the narrator into a marriage proposal. The joke: her sudden display of intelligence frightens him because it reveals her calculated self-interest. The "Leap Year" reference allows her to propose, inverting traditional gender roles for comic effect. **"Suspicious Symptoms"** and **"The Latest Recruit"** (bottom illustrations) satirize working-class courtship anxieties—a father's concerns that his son's sudden grooming and mysterious behavior indicate romantic entanglement leading to unwanted marriage. Together, these pieces mock both upper and lower-class romantic dynamics, suggesting women uniformly scheme for marriage regardless of social station.
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Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.
If Café By EW. I OMETIMES T think Mabel an awful simp She has pretty smile, nice teeth, and beautiful blue eyes, but above the cyebrows and beneath her wonderful mar- cel I suspect there is cant room, with noth in it but a mixed ur- coats, marshmallow - sun a va- vision of daes, and diamond solitaires. x x x It was Leap Year. We were seated at a table in Rector’s. I had been feed- ing Mabel, but food had not seemed to have the usual effect. Mabel smiled, it is true, and giggled, as usual, burt there was a mysterious flicker of restraint in her smile, and a curious cadence a rather thoughtful giggle, as though it had been strained through apotato-masher. | fancied, almost, that I discerned a glint of intelligence in \ bel’s beautiful eyes. This should have warned me. I should have hustled Mabel i Mousse Ki 7A AMAT home right then and there, but was talking rather hat Mabelwas li rather better tha It seemed a shame to break up so pleasant a party. But I wish I had taken the wa Take it from me, when- girl of Mabel’s type to show intelli- now signs of gence—Beware! Balancing a spoonful ef café tily within an inch of her parted lips Mabel launched her boom. I didn’t know it then, but I was being nominated for high office. “Arthur.” she “wouldn't it be we could always and always be like this—I mean, wouldn't it be just too wonderlul for words if we could always be at the ta able together ing café mousse dai lisped lisped conderful i . unsuspectir . Arthur, in the morn- rean, at breakf id Ih, if that’s the way you feel about it I'll come around to-morrow mornin breakfast with you, trying to be witty “Would you like to have it ting opposite you at breakfast?” she and cat I replied, rsisted “Yes,” I said, just tobe agreeable Tue “Oh, al- the hing Ma- teeth, Arthur, » forgetful of wlways and i, dropping the spla and smailin pretty smile, nice and wonderful blue eves x x x And up above her eyebrows and beneath her wonderful marcel there’s a mixed vision of fur-coats, marsh- mallow sundaes, anc and somewhere on her left something else md_ solitaire hand there’s a ¢ Suspicious Symptoms nuth'n’ sident of 1 hain’ that-a-way.” confessed ar Straddle Ridge, Ark. “but [I bet son gent yur on the Ridge is going to get a son-in-law pretty soon if he don’t watch My oldest boy, Tug, has took to tallering up his boots and wearing a collar on Sunday, moping around on week days like a hailstorm, und muttering like he mind. He's got a bottle of perfu book on hypnotism and one telling how ho prophet, nor out a lost goose in was losing his ery’, a ies, and has sent And I if anything goes wrong and he off for a mess of love powders 1 ge Ty about the same a the lunatic asylum ha: vot him, right now Fits Father's last year’s income fits this year's needs as Tommie’s last year’s over feet shoes fit this year’s Latest Recruit comicbooks.com